On the Law

I know more or less what I want to say, but I don't know quite how to say it.  So what will I do today, brain?

Seems legit.

I have exactly ten (10) things to say about the Law, no more, no less.

1. Everyone loves Jesus, except those who don't, but those heathens are going to suffer a righteous eternity of damnation burning in hell in anyway, so fuck 'em, am I right?  But I'm a Belieber, so I got my Golden Ticket.

So what does the Mel Gibson action hero of ancient times have to say about the Law?  He respected the Law, but saw it as a guide, not an absolute.  Further, he condemned those who were more bound to the Law than they were to a good Spirit, and who hypocritically used the Law for their selfish purposes.

Jesus spent pretty much half his ministry criticizing the religious fundamentalists Pharisees, who are definitely not still in charge of the world.

(Man, this is going to be fun, just 'Cuz.)

In Matthew 23:1-36, the J-Man (he said I could call him that, we coo' like dat and he lives inside my heart)...

... anyway, in Matthew 23:1-36, the J-Man tears the religious fundamentalists Pharisees a new one. He woed them not one time, not two times, but eight times!  Have you ever been woed eight times?  Woed, not wooed.

2. Earlier in the Good Book, in Matthew 12:1-13, The Dude is put on pre-trial for sticking his hand out the window while passing some wheat and eating some, and--get this, for real--for healing someone (I know, right?!) because it was Sunday and he was skipping Bible study.

He was like, "You religious fundamentalists Pharisees are fidiots".  And they were like, "No we're not, we're the good religious people who will go to heaven".  And he was like, "Um, no, you're hypocritical assholes."  And so they plotted to kill him like fidiotic, hypocritical assholes.

3.  Ok, you still don't believe me?  Ye of little faith. <tsk> <tsk> That's ok, you only need a nanobot of faith.

In Matthew 5:17 he pays homage to the Law by saying, in effect, "Yo, I ain't here to destroy everything y'all built". Then in Matthew 9:17 follows up by saying, "Buuut... it just ain't working out for us anymore.  It's gotta change with the times".

Oh, yeah?  And how so?  Well, in Matthew 22:36-40 the religious fundamentalists Pharisees, sneaky little devils they are, again tried to ensnare him by asking which of the gazillion laws of the Torah was the greatest.

Anyone but J's son, or a politician, would have likely fallen into the religious fundamentalist's Pharisee's bear trap.  But nope.  He simply responded with love God and love your neighbor.

That's the change of the times.  That's the fulfillment of the Law.  That's the Spirit of the Law.

Now you have to remember something: an enlightened person speaks to their audience in their context and to the level of understanding they can comprehend.  The broad meaning, the essence of the message of "love God" means to look to things that are beyond the material world.  That's it.  I do not think it means to swallow the pill of a religion, hook, line, and sinker.  The reason is because once you do that, most people stop seeking.  You think you have finally arrived at The Answer.  Guess what?  Spiritual reality is so deep and vast you will never grasp it all, and anyone who claims to Know The Truth is selling you snake oil.  Religion can be a good gateway into the spiritual world, but only as a stepping stone.

And obviously "loving your neighbor as yourself" means loving yourself well.  I think a lot of people tend to overlook that one.

4. Paul, who was like the Hamilton of New Testament... wait, let's stop here a minute.  I'll come back to the original thought after these messages.  Seriously, Paul was ambitious, wrote way too damn much, and was the boss's right hand man.  How much better could my analogy be?

Here's a shocker for you: I think the Bible is inspired spiritual writing, but is not the one and only authoritative Word of God, and certainly not literal in most cases.  With that in mind, Paul, being the extremist zealot that he was, was often a kind of a punk.  A good-hearted, well meaning, punk, but c'mon, look at his background.  He was killing Christians practically the day he converted to Christianity.  Talk about bipolar!  Anyway, not everything about Paul is bad.  He, too, was inspired.  He had some good stuff to say.  Which brings me too...

... in 2 Corinthians 3:6, Big Papa says the letter of the law kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Talk about killin' it!  Religious fundamentalists Pharisees and those of the same ilk are the vampires who will drain you of your life force with the letter of the Law instead of pumping it full of Spirit.

This part is important! They are the ones who will try to trick you into saying something you didn't mean, then use that quote out of context in court.  They are the ones who will pull you over for doing 56 mph in a 55 mph zone when everyone else is doing 70 mph.  They are the ones who will provoke you into a reaction, then mock your reaction, coyly feigning that they have no idea what you might ever be referring to.

We'll circle back 'round to deep dive that in further detail (I'm mocking buzz phrases if it's not obvious), but first:

5. The Spirit gives life.  The Spirit of the Law is the essence of the meaning, the whole purpose of its existence, without which there would be no law.  It is the whole reason we have judges of the legislature.  It is the reason why, in an ideal society, the criminal justice system has leeway to consider many factors before deciding the appropriate course of action and measure, rather than rigid thinking, maximum enforcement, (profiling) stop and search, mandatory sentencing, and so forth.

The Spirit of the Law is when you catch someone stealing food, but you look the other way.  It's when you don't fret if your neighbor's house party goes a little past HOA curfew rules.  It's when you ask the employee why they're tardy for the third time this week instead of firing them on the spot.

The Spirit of the Law is anytime anyone can say, "Yes, you can do that, you are authorized to do that, but the most prudent course of action is this other thing instead".  Oh, man, I can see it now.

6. However, we have come to the point now in our religious and political institutions, for both are intimately intertwined like snakes doing the nasty, where the letter of the Law has come to rule over the Spirit.  Politicians stonewall rather than let common sense prevail, attack strawmen and sling mud rather than debate issues, and pad incomprehensibly long, unread bills with needless pork barrel spending in order to win local support.

This was not the intention of our founders.  Corporations are now more politically powerful than the people, especially after the landfall Citizens United case, but they have none of our legal liabilities.

7. The letter of the Law is when bosses set you up for failure and document it fully, but intentionally aren't looking when you knock it out of the park.  It's when they sabotage your work, but are never caught.

The letter of the Law is when family members and teachers play favorites but you cannot prove it.  It's the good 'ol boy network.

The letter of the Law provides justification for corruption and cover up for abuse.  It's plausible deniability for deception while claiming holier-than-thou honesty.  It's incentives for cutting corners more and more until it's indistinguishable from outright cheating.  It's throwing your friends under the bus so you can get ahead, and then rationalizing it.

The letter of the Law is when whistleblowing against wrongdoing is protected, but retaliation occurs anyway behind the scenes.

The letter of the Law is when the police target people of color more often and juries convict them more often and judges sentence them harsher.  And if you don't believe me, ask any unbiased demographics statistician. (Note that this is aggregated data.  Most of the people involved are not aware of subconscious racism.  We are all conditioned from childhood, but it's also our responsibility to recognize bad programming and re-write it.)

The letter of the Law is when people misinterpret everything you do and then spread rumors.  It's when you are falsely accused and then guilty until proven innocent.  It's when you're judged through biased filters.  It's when you're never fully exonerated.

The letter of the Law is when religious institutions want the double standard of tax exemption, but also receive government assistance and government involvement.  Religious fundamentalists think that their religion can somehow escape the First Amendment clause whereby Congress is restricted from respecting the establishment of a religion.  They do so by making the inaccurate red herring claim that the country was founded on Christian values, when in fact it was Enlightenment Deist values.  But if the truth doesn't fit your perspective, do you change your perspective, ignore the truth, or try to make the truth fit your perspective?

8. Religious fundamentalists also believe the dominance of wider Christianity as a whole is under attack by a hostile secular society waging spiritual warfare.

What war?  There is no war on Christianity. 

Demanding space for all is not a war.  Allowing Muslims to serve in Congress is not war.  Critiquing the commercialization of holidays is not war.  Allowing prayer to be in school, but not sponsoring it, is not war.  Taking "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance--which was added during the Red Scare as if that would somehow inoculate against the communist atheism that was stealing your children's souls--is not war.

No one is prohibiting the free exercise of Christianity in America.  Anyone who thinks otherwise should talk to a missionary or a history professor.  They'll tell you all about the prohibition of free exercise of Christianity.

This blog post that speaks a personal truth, my opinion, my perspective, is not war on Christianity.  It's not even war on religious fundamentalism. I don't want war.  I want peace.  If you were to ask religious fundamentalists, I bet privately most would want a world that was entirely their particular sect, or at least a theocracy--but only of their sect.

I want a world where everyone is free to worship as they please, including religious fundamentalism, or even not at all.  I want to not be dominated anymore by a singular perspective that has the "sincerely held belief" that they are the privileged few to rule them all, that this country was founded by them, for them.

9. The Law has become a Beast.  Beast... beast... now where have I read that before...

By the 1980s the US criminal code has grown so much that no one could figure out just how large.  The best estimate, based on the survey of 3,000 cases, was that the code was scattered over 50 titles and 23,000 pages.  That number didn't even cover civil, contract, or tort law, and no doubt it has grown more in the past 40 years.

Scriptures grow rather slowly as new religions like Islam or Baha'i or new sects like Latter Day Saints add to the compendium.  However, religious legalism has stuck its holy fingers into so many holes now in secular society where they don't belong that it continues to grow in that sense.

I suppose the pushback against that is the war Christian religious fundamentalists are referring to, and if that's the case... um, who started it, bro?  I'm a spiritual person, but that doesn't effing matter.  Whether I'm a Christian religious fundamentalist or a Muslim or a Buddhist or Hindu or an atheist or a Pastafarian, it still doesn't effing matter.

The US Constitution is pretty clear and the majority of the people are pretty clear: stay out of our bedrooms, stay out of our schools, stay out of our workplaces.  You want to carry your cross or your star or your crescent or your colander with you wherever you go?  Awesome!  Do so with pride!  You do you.  Just don't make anyone else do it is all we are saying.

10. Regardless of who started what, US law and religious law both need simplification in codification and flexibility in application.  If Jesus were to return, he would probably say,